Key West, Florida, June 2012

At the beginning of June, the entire division of MCC took off to Fort Lauderdale for 5 days of planning and, of course, fun in the sun! I decided to head out a day early so that I could tag along with a colleague and discover Key West. 

We flew down to Fort Lauderdale on Sunday afternoon, and had planned to make the 4 hour trek in a Jeep bright and early Monday morning.  The plan was to leave at 5am to get to Key West by 9 am so that we could spend 4 hours and then be back at 5pm with an hour to spare before the kickoff BBQ.  Well even the best laid plans are bound to change!

 

At the ungodly hour of 4:30 am, I woke to the awful sound of my Blackberry wake up call. By 4:50 at was in the parking waiting for my colleague.  By 5:10, they had located the Jeep and we were on our way.  

In front of the tourist information site announcing the beginning of the Keys

The trip took a little less than 4 hours.  My sole plan was to take a picture at the southern most point of the continental US and take in the sights. 

Once at the Keys most of the road was like this, on a bridge surrounded by water

Southernmost Point: Check!

Interesting Find while exploring Key West

And, given that I'd been in my new job for about 5 minutes, I did a few store checks to see what Suncare looked like in Key West. After some exploring and some shopping, lunch was in order before we made the trip back to Fort Lauderdale.  A supplier had suggested the pier which turned out to be a great suggestion.

So where did our best laid plans go wrong you may be wondering?  Well about 45 minutes into our drive back on US1, two lanse highway surrounded by water, traffic came to a complete stop.  Engines off, nobody moving for 30 minutes.  Turns out an accident on US Route 1 brings traffic to a complete stop as emergency crews clean up the highway.  What this meant for us is that even as traffic starting rolling again, it wasn't until Key Largo that we starting rolling at reasonable speeds.  We left Key West at 12:45 and rolled into the W Fort Lauderdale hotel parking lot at 7:45.  Lucky for us, the weather was beautiful, sunny and hot. Unfortunately, both our blackberries died and we ran out of music to listen to.  

In the end, despite the painfully long drive back, I don't regret my excursion.  Key West was beautiful and I'm glad I took the time to visit.